HIST 301: Research Methods - Strathman

Getting Started

Historical research uses a wide variety of materials and your professor expects you to use scholary and primary sources both. This site is designed to provide guidance of where to look and how to identify what you have found effectively and quickly.

From your syllabus' assignment description, you need to locate PRIMARY and SECONDARY sources in order to write about an original concept in US History. The exploratory research you will do should assist in generating ideas for both the topic and inspire you to question what you have found for what original contribution you can make. For the final paper you may or may not use everything you found for the earlier assignments as research and your writing continually evolves throughout the research cycle.

Need ideas? What you are reading in class and your lecture topics will inspire ideas. But this is early in the semester and you have not covered all possible topics, so here are some sites to browse to get additional ideas:

American Memory (Constantly growing digital collection of images, documents and much more from the massive collections held at the Library of Congress.)

HEARTH (This lands you on the subject page, but fully searchable. From Cornell University, a wide-ranging collection of topics concerning American life.)

Animated Atlas Online (simplistic, but valuable in that it shows major world events at the same time and some major inventions and cultural events.)

If you are having trouble, feel free to contact me in person or virtually for additional help.

Primary Sources

Finding primary sources will be the most challenging portion of your search process. Not only determining where to look (not everything is on the web!), you will be dealing with inconsistent language, format issues, and identifying whether what you found is actually primary or not.

Searches including the term 'primary' will usually return an unsatisfactory result set. This is because it is actually difficult to label an item as primary--what it is varies with the need of the researcher and the situation in which the item was created. This example uses articles published about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

"San Francisco Doomed" from The Oakland Tribune, April 18, 1906 is from the time of the event and would be primary source material for historical research on this event and its aftermath.

"Frisco Quake Remembered" from The Birmingham Post and dated April 19, 2006 is secondary if you are researching the 1906 quake. BUT it could be considered primary if you are researching the perception of this event after a period of time (how has memory affected history?), rather than the event itself.

A well-done site that discusses finding primary sources on the web, providing examples and a selection of sites is "Using Primary Sources on the Web". This is brought to you by the members of the the American Library Association's Reference & Users Service Association/History Section.

Print

A search on your topic or person in the CSUSM library catalog (or other library catalogs) can reveal a number of primary sources in our collection. Keyword searches that include the following terms will identify primary materials most of the time:

Memoir

Diar* (for diary or diaries)

Correspondence (this is a LoC subject heading subdivision)

Letters

Personal narrative (this is a LoC subject heading subdivision)

Recollections

Reminscences

Journal

Some things to watch out for when searching a library catalog:

Searching on a personal name. If the catalog uses Library of Congress subject headings, there will be a consistent version used in the subject headings, but additional notes may be added to provide access through common alternatives, spellings, or nicknames. (e.g., Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens)

Subject headings will use one approved phrase for a topic, but if the subject heading has been updated (very rare), you may need to use older phrasing in your subject search. This is most likely to happen if you are using a print index (the drawers of cards) rather than an electronic index.

There are other tricks to try, contact your librarian for more help.

History Databases with Primary Sources

Accessible ArchivesA good source for 19th Century American History; includes newspapers on the Civil War and African Americans.

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998Newspapers digitized from 37 states chronicling African American experiences and influence in a variety of events from the early 19th through late 20th centuries.

Archive of AmericanaCollections of digital documents representing American history and the growth of the nation (American State Papers, U.S. Congressional Serial Set and its maps, and a collection of Hispanic American Newspapers. Search all collections at one time.

Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980Spanish and English language newspapers offering news, advertisements, opinion and more from across the nation reflecting contemporary thought and activity.

Los Angeles Times (Historical)Archived articles beginning with 1881. Issues published during the past twenty-four years are not available in this database. Check ProQuest or Factiva databases for more current material not held in this collection.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980A record of Congressional activities reflecting public opinion, interactions with the President, treaties and much more. A companion site to this is Congress.gov, listing legislative activity (bills and laws) for 1973-current.

Primary Sources (on the internet)

An increasing number of sites are offering digitized images and text that are of use to the historian. Here is a sampling:

Secondary Sources

Any well researched paper uses scholarly books to support the thesis and arguments. Many will count as secondary sources for history research.

Reference BooksThese are works like encyclopedias, directories, and collections of reviews. They may be quick overviews or in-depth studies and can help you in developing ideas on topics or a focus on a topic. Many will provide bibliographies leading you to both primary and secondary sources.

Circulating Books (check out and take home or access online)May be secondary, primary or mixed-source content (dependent on your research needs!)

In-depth studies on one topic

May be collections of primary sources with explanatory text (that counts as secondary)

Provides bibliographies to original sources and archives and relevant secondary literature

Books at Cal State San Marcos

Start your search in BOOKS & MORE by typing your topic in the KEYWORD search option.

This will return a list of book titles (as well as videos, slides) for you to browse.

When you find an item that looks relevant, click on the title for more information.

Especially useful on the item's record will be SUBJECTS which describe the content of the item and will link like items together.

Example

You are researching the popularity of beer in America following the end of World War II:

Strategize your keywords. Which are most appropriate or scholarly to get you the best results?

American/United States

Beer/brewery/breweries

WWII/post-World War/1945

The choices you make will make a huge difference in what you discover. I used beer AND "United States". If I get too many results, I can add terms to narrow my results even more.

I got 39 hits, so that isn't too bad. Here is a likely source to start...

After looking at the records I get on the keyword search, I can expand to browsing subject headings by clicking on the links in the record:

Need More?

We are phasing out the San Diego CIrcuit, but you can still order through that service OR we now have ONE SEARCH that draws from the entire CSU System.

The Chicago Manual of Style is the stylistic and citator preference for most history researchers, but always check with your professor before proceeding on both citation style and which system. The Notes-Bibliography system is generally preferred in history publications, but there is also an Author-Date system. These systems use different formatting, so be sure which your professor prefers.

IMPORTANT! Recently, the University of Chicago Press issued a new edition for this style. Check your resources such as automated citation generators to make sure you are being given the latest information based on the 17th edition as not all sites have updated yet.

Chicago may be referred to as Turabian, after Kate Turabian, who wrote a manual for students for research, writing and citing sources based on the Chicago citation style. The current version is titled A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers. The CSUSM library keeps a copy at the Research Help Desk at LB2369 .T8 2007 and a copy on permanent Reserves (Checkout Desk.)

For a summary of the Chicago style of citation for legal citations, please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style 17th ed. Chapter 14, sections 269-280 for legal materials and sections 281-292 for US Government pubiications.